eComStation v 1.2 Refresh and the Compaq Laptop

This article is about my experience with eComStation version 1.2 refresh and loading that on a
Compaq laptop. Since this experience comes so quickly on the heels of all the articles announcing the death of
OS/2, I thought it would be informative to look at just how easy it is
to install eComStation on a new, non-Thinkpad [IBM] laptop, and what kind of support is available for the person doing
this.

Which Laptop?

Warpstock [2005] is approaching and I reluctantly came to the conclusion that I needed a new laptop for Warpstock. My
existing laptop is a NEC Ultralight, the first laptop to weigh less than 5 pounds [2.3 kg]. But since that machine only has
1 MiB of memory and a pseudo hard drive of 2 MiB, it does not load or run
OS/2. Time for a new machine. But what type of laptop and which brand?

Being an analytical type of guy I quickly decided on three criteria for choosing the right laptop: it had to look
good, it had to be exceedingly cheap, and it had to run eComStation. The first two criteria might be rather
subjective, but the last one was pretty easy to ascertain. I simply took my eComStation CD 1 to the store and checked that the candidate laptop could boot
eCS from the CD.

What I found was a
Compaq Presario M2105US at Office Depot for $549 [€456] after rebates (list price $729 [€606]): AMD Sempron 2800, 256 MiB RAM, 40 GiB
hard drive, 15" screen, integrated modem, wireless 802.11g, (wired) ethernet, 1 PCMCIA slot, sound
"card" and speakers, along with 2 USB ports. The laptop
booted eCS with no problem from the CD and, perhaps more important, it looked great. (Hey - you got to have your
priorities straight!) Since Office Depot offers a 14 day return policy, I decided this was a pretty low risk
acquisition and the laptop followed me home. Now the question was, Can I install eCS and will it support all
the stuff on the laptop?

Fig. 1: The laptop

Shrinking the XP

I wanted to keep Windows XP on the laptop in case I ever need to boot the evil empire. I wanted to devote half the
hard drive to XP, and the other half to eComStation. So my first thought was to shrink the Windows XP partition on
the hard drive to free up space for eComStation using DFSee. I tried that and the shrunken partition would
not boot Windows XP. DFSee may or may not shrink NTFS partitions successfully; in my case the process did not work.
The shrinking process may have worked if I had tried it before booting the laptop for the first
time. Apparently the file system for Windows XP pre-loaded partitions is FAT32, which is converted to NTFS after the first boot. DFSee is capable of
shrinking FAT32 partitions successfully, but has spotty success shrinking NTFS partitions.

Luckily Compaq supplies a CD containing Windows XP and another CD containing applications, drivers, and
configuration routines specific to the laptop so that you can completely reinstall what is preloaded on the laptop.
So I started the Windows XP installation from the CD, deleted the existing partition, and created a smaller partition
of 17 GiB and installed WinXP on this partition. This freed up space on the hard drive for eComStation. At this point I
had one 17 GiB partition on the hard drive, which contained Windows XP. Now to install a real operating system.

Support

Much has been said recently in various articles and on the POSSI mailing list about the future of OS/2 - eComStation in light of
IBM announcing its withdrawal of support for OS/2 at the
end of 2006; the assumption being that the OS/2 world is coming to an end now that IBM is "withdrawing." My
personal experience with eComStation support contradicts this assumption.

When it came time to install eCS, I loaded CD1 and started the install process. It had an error right before the
first reboot and the install did not continue. This was on Sunday afternoon. So I decided to try the phone support
offered on the VOICE home page (click on Help Desk on the left side of the home
page). I called the phone number listed on the page and Roderick Klein answered on the 4th ring. When I described
the symptoms to Roderick, he immediately knew what the problem was and directed me to where I could download the beta
2 refresh of eComStation version 1.2. The problem is that the installation program fails when running on an AMD
Athlon 64bit or an AMD Sempron CPU. The fix was already incorporated into the refresh.

Think about this: when was the last time you called support and got a human being on the 4th ring? When was the
last time you called support and got someone that actually knew what they were talking about and could fix your
problem? When was the last time you called support on a Sunday, and got an answer? With eComStation and Roderick I
got all three.

With all the recent concern about the future of OS/2 enhancements and lack of support with IBM out of the picture,
Serenity already had a solution to my problem. According to Roderick, IBM has not fixed their installer, meaning that
you cannot install the convenience pack from IBM on an AMD 64 bit CPU, but you can install eComStation. Take that,
nay-sayers!

I downloaded the refresh file from the URL Roderick provided,
unzipped the file and made a CD which could be booted. There are instructions available
(howToBurnCDs.pdf) at the same location for burning a bootable CD with RSJ in eComStation and Nero in
Windows. Since I have RSJ, that is what I used and list instructions here:

Ignore the instructions from RSJ on burning a bootable CD.

Open the CD View object in the RSJ folder.

Click on CD Recorder in the CD View list.

Drag the file that you downloaded and drop it on the window that you opened.

Installing eComStation

Once I had the refresh CD made, installation was a snap. I booted from the CD, picked the default boot
configuration, then partitioned the hard drive using the install program (miniLVM).

It sometimes seems impossible to create a volume that you can set as Startable
using the miniLVM that is started by the install routine. An easy work-around is to start the maintenance console
and invoke LVM.EXE.

I added Boot Manager and then created a 2 GiB HPFS
partition/volume for my eComStation boot drive, and 4 JFS volumes
to store applications and data. After finishing the eCS install, I also created a 2 GiB NTFS partition for Windows
XP and a 1 GiB FAT32 partition for sharing data between eComStation and Windows XP. This is what the partitions
looked like from miniLVM after all the partitions had been created. I have no idea what all the Not Available removable drives are that are shown on the left side of the screen.
[These are drives that have been reserved by USB MSD drivers.]

As you can see in the Windows Disk Manager, Windows and eComStation apparently calculate or
at least display partition sizes differently.

After the disk was partitioned, the rest of the install was very easy. The only four areas to watch out for
are:

You will probably want to create a CD with the eComStation key on it before starting the install; this Compaq
laptop does not come with a floppy drive. Otherwise you will have to type all that information in on the
registration page. Be sure to put the eComStation CD 1 back in the drive before clicking on the Save registration data button. Otherwise you will get an error that says "Cannot save
registration information."

On the Verify hardware screen, the Notebook and
PCMCIA Support checkbox will not automatically be checked. This is because the PCMCIA chipset is not
recognized or supported at this point by eComStation. Also the power management system used is ACPI which once
again is not supported yet by eComStation. You can check the box if you want, but the features will not work once
installed.

On the Configure network screen, you need to add a driver for RealTek 8129.
Click on the Add Driver button and select the RealTek 8100/8139 driver from the
list.

I installed using the Advanced Installation because I like to use XWorkplace rather than the eWorkplace that is
included by default in eComStation; I like some of the additional features and options provided by XWorkplace.
eWorkplace is a version of XWorkplace modified specifically for eComStation. It is installed by default and is
simpler to configure than XWorkplace.

Tips and Tricks

These are just a few of the tips I have from doing the install.

If you are using the Advanced Install, the Screen Setup page in the
End of ECS Installation dialog/wizard does not work. The workaround uses the
System object from the System Setup folder.

It appears that the FAT32.IFS package included in the eComStation CDs does not work
correctly. Download the updated package from Hobbes and use that one.

I have never gotten the task manager widget in the XCenter (eCenter in the default eWorkplace) to
work. [This may be due to the XWorkplace PM hook not being enabled.]
Download the lswitcher widget and use that instead. It is great.

If you are installing VisualAge C++ version 3 and you also have XWorkplace or eWorkplace installed, the
VisualAge install hangs after its reboot when it is finishing the Workframe portion of the install. This is caused
by Visual Age C++ 3 installing an outdated version of a SOM DLL
and can be solved by moving the Visual Age C++ directories in LIBPATH in the CONFIG.SYS
file to the end of LIBPATH prior to rebooting for the Workframe install.

VisualAge C++ version 4 does not have this problem.

Finishing the Windows XP Setup

After installing eComStation I created 2 more partitions with LVM for use by Windows XP: a 2 GiB NTFS
partition (drive D:) for storing development tools, and a 1 GiB FAT32 partition for sharing data between Windows
XP and eComStation. The image below is what the partitions look like from Windows XP. Note the list of partitions in the upper
right window do not appear in the same order the partitions are on the hard drive; the box "graphics" at
the bottom (with the blue bars) does show the partitions in the order they appear on the drive.

The only "disks" that show up in Windows XP are the partitions that Windows XP recognizes: C drive
(NTFS), D drive (NTFS), and E drive (FAT32). The partitions used by eComStation are only visible in the Disk Management section of the Computer Management tool in
WinXP.

External video out port.
You must reboot the laptop after connecting an external screen before the video shows up on the external screen.
The laptop screen also shows video while displaying on the external port.

Built-in wired ethernet 10/100 port.

USB

eComStation version 1.2 Refresh

I have listed below some of the updates that are included in the beta 2 refresh of eComStation. In addition to the
updates listed below, there are a number of bugs that have been fixed.

Kernel Changes

Kernel is at level 14.103a - this supports Athlon64 processors. Installation on AMD Athlon64 and Sempron is now
possible

Backleveled LVM.DLL and associated files to level of eComStation 1.2 GA, on strong
recommendation of RWK [Roderick W Klein] (this should be tested - some of the files are considerably older than in eCS 1.2.1 MR beta 1)

Applied UN02334 [TCPIP update] which appeared to be missing from the MR build (and eCS 1.2 as well?)

Update to miniLVM files (v2.01 pops up a warning if the C: drive has an 'alien' filesystem; also
bugfixed)

SNAP SE 220 build 462

WarpIn 1.0.6

Miscellaneous Changes

Improved Dialog Enhanced dialogs

Fullscreen session avaiable from Maintenance console

Added INF document on Firewall configuration

Installation of folder background bitmaps is now optional, in Advanced install

It is possible to check the media-integrity before installation (textmode frontend, md5sums)

Improved Desktop Migration, IBM-style desktop migration implemented

A maintenance desktop gets created, and is useable without corrupting the normal desktop

Driving into Future

Despite all the talk recently about IBM abandoning OS/2, eComStation seems to be thriving quite well as shown by
the list of updated drivers and applications that are updated in the refresh.

However it is true that eComStation lags behind in some types of driver development compared to Windows and Linux
- the current examples of the Compaq internal wireless and modem being unsupported are two such examples. That being
said, the future appears bright for device driver development for eComStation because of a number of relatively
recent trends:

Linux

Since Linux has become so popular, the need for device drivers to run on something other than Windows has
become apparent to many people. Many programmers, that is. This has resulted in a number of
"technologies" that have migrated to OS/2 - from source code that is ported to concepts developed on
Linux which are transferred to OS/2 projects. Just a few examples of this this cross-pollination are the UniAud
device driver, ODIN and XFree86 X server.

"Wrapper"ed Device Drivers

A new concept in porting device drivers is taking hold in both Linux and in OS/2. It is the concept of writing
a wrapper that allows a device driver written for Windows to run on another operating system. You can think of as
being something like ODIN for device drivers. In Linux this is happening for wireless network adapters, sound codecs, and the entire NTFS file
system.

In OS/2 Willibald Meyer is working on a wrapper for wireless LAN devices, called GenMac, to load and use Win32
device drivers in OS/2. According to Daniela it is already working her Intel Centrino 2200 b/g WLAN. That wrapper
may also be extended to include USB connected wireless devices.

Faster CPUs

This is what makes practical things like wrappered device drivers. With CPUs as fast as they are now, a device
driver can have a wrapper around it that essentially "translates" calls from one OS to another without
a noticeable performance penalty.

Generic Commercial Drivers

There are starting to appear commercial companies that sell code that can be used as the "guts" for
device drivers. One example is Thesyscon that makes code
for Firewire. While this isn't very practical for independent device driver programmers, it is one possible
course of action for entities such as Serenity or Netlabs who fund device driver development to shorten
development time.

Conclusion

The installation of eComStation on the laptop was just about as easy as installing an operating system can be;
very little human intervention is necessary for a successful install. In the case of the Compaq Presario just
partitioning the hard drive and selecting the networking driver and sound driver was necessary.

Serenity has obviously put a lot of effort into the installer and that effort has paid off. The Refresh addresses
some installation issues that are outstanding with version 1.2, and the resulting installation on my laptop was very
painless.

For the money the Compaq Presario M2105 seems a very good value. While the internal wireless network and modem are
not currently compatible with any eComStation drivers, that is a problem that exists for many of the current laptops.
And both of those issues are pretty easily remedied with external devices, if that is necessary. For my use neither
matters much; other people will have different priorities.

Part of what makes the Compaq a good value is that it comes with the necessary software for reinstalling Windows
XP and all the other specialized stuff that Compaq bundles with the machine. This saves the money that some other
laptop makers require for sending those CDs that should be included in the box.

I think this also shows that with just a little careful shopping it is pretty easy to buy a mainstream laptop and
have it work successfully with eComStation because Serenity is updating and improving eComStation.